


Brunfelsia Pauciflora

by olliecoddle



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Bisexual Mike Wheeler, Break Up, Coming Out, Gay Will Byers, Growing Up, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kind of just an exploration of Will Byers, M/M, Minor Character Death, Minor Eleven | Jane Hopper/Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Minor Violence, One-Sided Will Byers/Mike Wheeler, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Will-centric, do ocs really count if they're just plot devices?, maybe some plot in this chapter idk maybe if you're lucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-08-11 20:04:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20159323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olliecoddle/pseuds/olliecoddle
Summary: When Will Byers was seven years old his father had told him that he would burn in Hell for being gay.When he had been taken to the Upside-Down, Will couldn’t get it out of his mind that that was exactly what had come to pass.Or, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow in the life of Will Byers





	1. Yesterday

**Author's Note:**

> aright boys, this chapters just some canon-adjacent Will-centric angsty retelling tidbits, ya know.

When Will Byers was seven years old his father had told him that he would burn in Hell for being a faggot.

When he had been taken to the Upside-Down, Will couldn’t get it out of his mind that that was exactly what had come to pass. 

Except, Hell was cold and the thing that gave him the strength to stay alive was remembering how Mike Wheeler’s eyes could laugh even when he was crying. He hid with his ribs pressed to the slimy dirt, filling the decaying Fort Byers with the Clash shaking from his blue lips. He shrieked for his mom when he felt her near, wanting her to wrap her arms around him and take him back to his room like she would do when Lonnie started throwing things. 

Nobody saved him, not until after days and nights in Hell. Will comforted himself with memories of nights gone by. His heart was straining to beat but his mind was nestled in his own light side bedroom. Curled up like a cat in his sleeping bag cocoon Mikes snores purred, drooling on Will’s Camelot 3000 comic. Looking at him in the lonely lamplight of being the last to fall asleep, he had known. When the two would awake the next morning with their hands on each other’s middles and their legs locked only one of them would feel the stinging shame of an imagined significance, making something out of every sleepover nothing until Will could hardly stand it.

When they were younger, that was all easier to push to the back of his mind. Board games and exploring imagined worlds were all a billion times more important than feelings that bubbled deep in the pit of his stomach

It got harder once the world decided it was time to get harder.

Will struggled to find practical ways to love Mike. Love was letting Mike borrow his bike when he blew out the tire of his own. Mike always let the air pressure get too low but Will didn’t say a word of ridicule. Love was hiking back to Will’s bedroom when it was rainy and pulling out his top dresser drawer to reveal his humble tape collection, playing him ‘real music’ for once. It wasn’t story-book romance, but it was as close as he could get. Will would do anything Mike told him, go anywhere Mike told him. He would never lie to Mike. He would lay down his life for Mike. Sometimes Will felt as though Mike might understand what he meant, understand the way Will was different. Only sometimes.

Then, where Mike was oblivious others started to become informed, noticing what was different about the mousy, earnest boy with crayons shoved in his shorts pockets.

Now it wasn’t just his father it out, it was everyone everywhere he went. ‘Faggot’ flung from lips and followed him like an irritated wasp, the unrelenting sting never leaving him a moment to process the pain. Of course, people could always be counted on to defend his honor. The party, Johnathan, his mom, they were always quick to reassure him._ What they say isn’t true. They don’t mean it. You shouldn’t listen to them._ He loved them so much for it, but the problem with their defense was that they were wrong. He was everything that they said, a queer, a freak, a sissy. 

When Will came back to the right-side Hawkins (Heaven, as he began to call it in his head), everything went back to normal again, happy again. At least, everything was back to normal when everyone was together. In Mike’s ever-familiar basement Will, the Wise donned his purple robes and ripples of laughter choked the hot breath right from their lungs. They burned through every sentence that they had been deprived of saying while Will was in Hell. They constantly threw kindling into the proverbial fire, everyone joking, swapping stories, and making up games as they beat the silence back fiercely. The party was constantly trying to keep the ball rolling. 

Because when the ball fell it fell hard.

When they broke off into pairs or god forbid singles the pauses were filled with thoughts that no one wanted to think about, broken words crept into the happy reunions. 

_“Yeah, it’s okay. It’s just-”  
“I know”_

_“We had a funeral for you, you know.”_  
“I know, and Jennifer Hayes was there, you said.”  
“No, but I mean.. Will, I’ve been to your funeral.”  
“Yeah?” 

_“I thought about you a lot down there.”  
“I thought I’d never see you again.”_

_“I miss her.”_

_“I missed you.”_

_“I still see it all sometimes.”_

_“It still feels so real.”_

_“Why are you being so quiet?”  
“It’s nothing”_

Will slept in his mom’s bed for two weeks after he first came back, wrapping him up in garish and fading quilt until he was certain of where he was. When Will told Mike that fact the other boy shrugged and didn’t say anything and Will loved him for it. 

Will was scared. 

Sleeping like that helped. Sleepovers helped too, but his mom didn’t really let him leave the house like that anymore. He couldn’t say he blamed her but it was hard knowing that they were together without him. What’s the difference? They had been together without him while he was down there, so he assumed it was all just the same for them. Well, except for the disappearance of the infamous El.

Will was almost relieved when he heard about Eleven and Mike. Mike, ever his best friend confided to him in low voiced secrecy how they had kissed. Mike had told him everything _Will, you would like her so much. She’s so cool. Did you hear how-_ Yes, he had heard. Of course, he had heard. He had heard it all. Will was happy for Mike. He was sure he _would_ like her, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the stories anymore. Though when Mike stopped talking, that was worse. When he fell down from the high of tales of El he fell back to the empty space where El used to be. Will let him sit in silence. 

Will knew that the pain he felt missing El was terrible. Not being able to be with the person you want to be with._ Imagine that._ But Will wasn’t bitter, it wasn’t a competition. At least, he really did try to be happy for him. Will knew that even with El dead Mike was in for much less pain as a result of loving her than he would be loving Will. Because that would mean he was _like Will._ He didn’t want Mike to feel the same way he felt. The way he felt was agonizing.

When El came back, when he met her and saw her; he understood. That was the most frustrating thing to him, he understood. He could hardly blame the other for forgetting about him to hold her close. How could a little scared scrawny pale zombie boy compete with a beautiful brave kind girl with superpowers? The pros and cons lists could never measure up. 

Besides, Eleven needed Mike more than he did. Despite Will’s trembling nights and the “off” days where he felt like he wasn’t _really _anywhere and the unpredictable moments when memories would deck him out of nowhere, Eleven needed him more. There was no one alive in Hawkins, Indiana who could measure up to what she had been through. And Will knew full well how much better Mike could make someone feel. He hoped he was helping El the way it had helped him. Hoped when she cried his hands were the same sturdy palms on her back. Being held by Mike was warm and soft and slightly sweaty and perfect. 

When The Mind Flayer took over Will he felt a sickly familiarity. An infected mind was an everyday affair. 

The pain in his body as he tried to resist was new and terrible and he thought that he would die, go back to hell. Once he didn’t Will couldn’t help but think that he would rip himself in two to get rid of the part of his brain that was in love with his best friend. 

He tried it. He beat his skull hard against the back of his bed frame on nights when he couldn’t sleep. Over and over, just quiet enough to keep his mom from coming running. Was the only way to fix a broken brain to break it twice?

No. It never worked. Will knew he was disgusted in a way that freezing swim trips to the lake with the rest of the party would never wash off. The filth was in his blood. He couldn’t remove it. It wasn’t a demon he could exercise, it was his cross to bear. 

Sitting under juniper trees alone, Mike and El up the hill; they were his feelings to tamp down.

He managed to settle it all, at least a bit. Time was passing and that was good, he reassured himself of that. 

All their faces changed so quickly he hardly noticed and now El and Mike looked serious when they held hands. They weren’t kids playing boyfriend and girlfriend anymore. They were El and Mike, glorious and unstoppable. Will was still Just Will. Always the same, despite the inches he had gained since last fall. 

How could his friends not notice when he became terrified again?

How?

Girls. That was how.

The girls were his friends too, but it still wasn’t the same. Will could see how Mike’s eyes turned to El when they were in danger, they used to turn to him. Everyone was distracted in every which way until there was no more time for Will Byers. When Joyce and Johnathan were at work Will would sit alone in his room. He would put his tapes on. He would signal on the radio. He would draw.

Somewhere they had diverged. Will didn’t like girls, at least not as far as he knew, but if that was the whole story Will could deal with that. 

Everything was changing. 

He had just gotten his life back together, they all had. Now, it felt like it was all slipping through his fingers again. His head spun with no time to slow down. The rocks of his life. Sleepovers, game nights, they were so few and far between. He felt like soon it wouldn’t exist. 

The world that he had used to comfort himself in the upside-down didn’t exist anymore. The party altogether, shining and innocent with nothing to do but be together. He would never get that back.

Will hadn’t had adventure after adventure to turn himself into an action hero like the rest of them. He had had two nightmares that he had just barely gotten to end. 

It had made them all grow up faster, feel like they could do anything. Will gripped white-knuckled on the hands of the clock, trying to turn them back. Get them to slow down. 

He wanted to be the boy with crayons in his pocket again.


	2. Today-Changes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still don't know what I was waiting for  
And my time was running wild, a million dead-end streets and  
Every time I thought I'd got it made  
It seemed the taste was not so sweet  
So I turned myself to face me  
But I've never caught a glimpse  
Of how the others must see the faker  
I'm much too fast to take that test
> 
> Changes  
Turn and face the strange

The day that Will Byers left Hawkins, Indiana the party had given him a small cardboard box. All arms and tears, he shouldn’t get enough of any of them. Shit Dustin whispered in his ear as they were all tangled and Will couldn’t think of anything else that summed his feelings up more. Shit. 

Pushed into his palm by Lucas as he hugged him goodbye, his clammy hands clung to the peeling clear tape as he settled into the passenger seat of their car, long journey ahead on the sunny road. 

Jonathan asked if he wanted to put on music and for once Will didn’t know what he wanted to hear. Jonathan slipped a Bowie cassette into the dash. Changes filled the car. 

_Still don't know what I was waitin' for_

And then Will was crying again because he knew something he hadn’t known before. If he had to wait until Christmas to tell someone he would burst with it, he knew couldn’t keep it all inside of him because he felt nauseous just thinking about it and he couldn’t do it on his own with no one knowing and he should have said it before he left because the only people in the world he would ever tell was the party and now he was afraid he never would because he didn’t want to start over with strangers he couldn’t trust and when he only saw them every few months there would always be a reason not to tell and 

_Who would you rather be friends with? Bowie or Kenney Rogers?_

Jonathan

Jonathan would understand, right? Moments without Joyce were scarce sometimes and here they were three feet away from each other. 

Would he understand? 

He had to, right? 

_Turn and face the strange?_

“Jonathan, I’m gay.”

The road was suddenly fascinating to Jonathan and as Will’s voice faded into the felt roof of the car it took all of his oxygen with it. 

“Really?”

“Yeah”

“Okay.”

“Sorry I just.”

“Oh God, don’t apologize. Will, never apologize.”

“Sorry I just mean that-“

“Hunky Dory is a good album, isn’t it,” Jonathan interrupted.

And then Will could breathe again because he knew what he meant by that. 

That night was filled with boxes. Moving boxes, takeout boxes, and later, tucked away in his new room, the box from the party. He peeled the tape back slowly, opening the flaps and reaching quivering fingers inside. He reached paper first, pulling out four letters. Max, Mike, Lucas, and Dustin were scrawled across smooth envelope backs in different ink. The box had been too heavy to just be filled with paper so he reached his hand in again and pulled out a figurine. It was a carved wooden wizard, a round purple gemstone placed in one hand. Will went to put it on his windowsill and when he turned back El was standing in his doorway, tears in her eyes, a small cardboard box in her hand. 

“Will,” she said quietly. He wrapped his arms around her before she could pry the last letter of his name off of her lips.

These days, Will and El were on an even footing. Not just because El’s powers disappeared. Not just because the only reason Joyce didn’t adopt El was because is was impossible to adopt someone who didn’t technically exist. Not because they were both starting over, but with the creeping intimacy of months together. Will knew that El sang in the shower, that she had cold feet and hands, that she loved ladybugs but would run like hell from wasps. No wasps inside, not for the first 12 years of her life. They turned daily rounds around each other.

Siblings were something El never had before and Will knew just how good a sibling could be. He tried to be a good brother, thought about how Johnathan has been to him. 

Some days he felt like he really succeeded. It helped that El was a good sister.

They watched movies together. They went to school together, two freaky friends. 

Will still knew brothers weren’t supposed to be in love with their sister’s boyfriend.

He wasn’t sure who missed Mike more. 

Mike never asked to speak to either of them first, just accepted who picked up the phone and Will loved him for that. 

“Goodnight, I love you,” Mike said on the phone one night. 

Will couldn’t say anything back for a moment and before he could the line was filled with Mike’s urgent voice.

“Shit, sorry, man. I’m used to saying goodbye to El and I just…”

Tidal wave.

“No, it’s okay.”

“Sorry. I mean it’s not that I don’t-”

“Its okay. Goodnight, Mike.” _Click_

Will had other friends too. New friends. 

He still counted down the days until he would get to see Mike again in red tick marks on his wall. 79, 78. But friends made it better. 

They met by the bike racks every morning, just like he used to do with the party. 

They called him The Big Will after a movie they had watched and they were all really into friendship bracelets. Will quickly collected more than he could count, carefully tacking each one to a board above his bed.

There was no arcade in their new town. They played Ghostbusters on Ella’s Atari 2600 and Will felt a pit in his stomach. 

He went to a sleepover. Jacob’s mom didn’t flip if girls stayed the night too, as long as they slept in the living room. 

_Big Will, truth or dare?_ A kernal of discarded popcorn crunched under his shoulder as he climbed into his sleeping bag and Will felt like a teenager for once.

And then there was Charlie. He was all green eyes and cropped sandy hair and he was absolutely nothing like Mike.

Charlie took Will to the creek by the highway and they waded into the water. Will fell in._ "Fight against the sadness Artax."_

They laughed at that even as Will shivered back to Charlies, soaked to the skin. Charlie called him Artax after that, Will called him Atreyu, but never in front of the rest of their friends.

He told Will that he was funny, once. They were standing on an overpass watching headlights wizz by below and Will had made some stupid joke and Charlie had laughed, moving his hand out so that it almost touched Will’s arm. Right before he touched him he pulled away and then he had said that he was funny, looking him dead in the eyes serious like he wanted him to know he meant it. Not funny like odd. Funny funny. That was something Will had never heard anyone say about him. Charlie was quiet enough to hear that it was true. 

When Mike came for thanksgiving he stayed in Will’s room.

Mike took a long time looking around, asking about the pictures and his drawings. Will felt guilty whenever he had to answer. _You know, they’re not you guys, not the party, but they’re nice._ Only once Mike was done did his small voice did he ask why his letter wasn’t hung up next to the other three. Will didn’t have the heart to tell him that he had never been able to open it so he lied through his teeth and told him that it had fallen down. He had meant to tape it back up, he just hadn’t gotten around to it.

Will couldn’t remember the last time he had lied to Mike. 

_Friends don’t lie._

All the same, Will Byers did.

In fact, he told four lies over Thanksgiving with Mike.

_I miss Hawkins but I feel safer here, you know._

Maybe that was two lies. 

Will didn’t miss Hawkins. 

He missed his friends. He missed his house. He even missed goddamn mall, he heard it had reopened. Sometimes his bike tired aches for the route to the Wheelers. But he certainly did not miss Hawkins, where every crack in the sidewalk was a cold dark hole to fall endlessly into and everyone saw him as a faggoty little boy with daddy issues. Lonnie’s strange son. Oh wait, which one? 

See, that joke would kill in Hawkins. 

But he didn’t feel safe here either.

He didn’t know if he would ever feel safe and his new friends didn’t really understand what it meant when Will Byers got wide-eyed and out of breath.

He knew Mike wanted to hear those two things, though, and it was easier to just say it than explain everything else.

_Go, I don’t mind._

Mike has asked if he could sneak off to Els room around midnight. Their incessant chatter had faded about 11:30 and they had just been lying there in the dark, pretending to fall asleep. 

Maybe that one wasn’t a lie. He felt empty as he lay in bed without him but his stomach settled more than it had the whole time since Mike had arrived. 

The last lie was just one word.

_Yeah_

And it was part of a bigger truth.

Because the last night Mike was there Will told him that he liked boys. Knees pressed hard into Will’s quilt he had just said it. He had told him he liked Charlie. Mike had asked him if Charlie was the reason he had figured it out. Will said yes because that was so much simpler than saying no. 

Mike asked him what it was like, liking boys. Will didn’t know how to answer that question. Then, they were quiet again for a while. 

_It’s not my fault you don’t like girls_

Yes it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was definitely supposed to be one chapter but I was having trouble with it so I'm making it two distinct chapters. 
> 
> i know my writing style is a little strange and I'm definitely unsure about this chapter but I'm putting it out there anyway!
> 
> cheers, hope you enjoy!
> 
> any feedback is appreciated!


	3. Frostbite - Today

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas to Will Byers.

When Will came to Hawkins for Christmas something was wrong with the party. 

The kid gloves were on like they were the few days after Will had gone unresponsive on Dustin’s beige carpet. None of them were treating him like a proper human. They seemed to feel the need to cradle him, lowering their voices when they spoke and giving each other knowing glances when they thought he wasn’t looking. It made Will feel sick that they were the wiser to something that he wasn’t.

Of course, they tried to pretend everything was normal and he had bought it at first. It was hard to feel anything other than elation when all ran out to hug him and El as soon as they pulled into Mikes driveway, hollering and clapping him on the back.

They spent that day sledding, all ruddy cheeks and bruised legs as they crashed into each other in laundry baskets annoying stuff yd on crushed cardboard boxes. Will knew Mike had a real sled, the kind with wood and metal and blades that could make you bleed, but he didn’t bring it with him. The day called for scrappy rascally fun with makeshift crafts and running noses wiped to freeze on their gloves. For five hours on the snowy hill behind the Safeway Will missed Hawkins more than anything. 

Then it came tumbling down on Christmas Eve.

Everyone had miraculously convinced their parents to let them stay the night and they were absolutely drowning in blankets and peppermint hot chocolate. 

Then they asked Will about his new friends, about his bracelets, about Charlie. It hit Will like a ton of bricks.

They all knew.

At least they all owned up to it. The story went that Mike had told Harrington because Harrington had told him about this girl who liked girls and Harrington had told Dustin and Dustin hadn’t told anyone but Dustin isn’t very good at lying and Lucas got it out of him that something was wrong and flipped his lid about the party keeping secrets from him so then Mike had told Lucas and Lucas had to tell Max and then Max of course told El and El had known since early December so everyone had to have known before that and nobody had thought to tell Will that _ they all knew_. It was just something to pass around, a commodity, the gossip of the day. 

_It doesn’t matter _came pouring from Lucas’ mouth, an antidote that didn’t hit right. _Like hell it fucking didn’t. _

Will locked himself in the upstairs bathroom, sprinting out as fast as his slight legs could carry him. 

Mike made a valiant effort to pound down the door with his fists but to no avail. Will just picked at the fluffy pink bath mat with his eyes closed, pulling out thread after thread with his cracked fingernails as he tried to breathe at all.

_Click_  
When had Mike Wheeler learned to pick locks?

When Will opened his eyes again the other boy was on his knees in front of him, those big brown eyes all puffy, long lashes wet and sticking together in an arachnidian halo around his eyes. Why the fuck was _he _crying?

“I’m so sorry Will, I’m so sorry,” that was all he could seem to say and Will didn’t know how to tell him that for once that wasn’t enough.  
Sorry worked the time he had let go of Will hand and he had fallen out of that apple tree, getting that big scrape down his back that you could still see if you squinted. Sorry works when Will found out the party had lied to him about the most important roll in his campaign. Sorry worked when he spilled Hi-C all over Wills drawings. Sorry didn’t work now. They weren’t kids anymore, their mistakes mattered.

Before he could think of a way to say any of that Mike was doubled over, knees folded beneath him as his head pressed into Wills knee. His pose was reverent, praying for forgiveness to a god that surely abhor Will and all Will wanted to do was push him off. Mike was snotty and slimy and he could feel it seeping through his khakis. He was trying hard to be disgusted by it, be mad or grossed out or anything that would give him the strength to push him away. 

But Will wasn’t mad, he just wanted to be alone and being alone wasn’t enough to give him the strength to reject any scrap of attention Mike threw his way.

He could already feel himself forgiving Mike, tissue paper resolve tearing with one salty tear. 

It had always felt like everyone always knew anyway, what the fuck was the difference now? Mike had done him a favor. Yeah, that was it. He had done him and everyone else a favor. Now they all didn’t have to put on a show being surprised that the kettle was black. He was a faggot, they all always knew it. People seemed to know just by looking at him. It would have all been a waste of time to come out anyway. It was better this way.  
They got a long month to talk all about it behind his back, get all their disgust off their chests and their sun-freckled cheeks before he showed back up again. 

_Please just go away._

Mike sat up, his lip trembling and his eyes hollow. 

“Will, please. You gotta understand that I-”

“Just go away, Mike.”

“No, Will, I didn’t mean to- I swear I didn’t mean for any of this”

“Mike, go away!!”

Will never seemed to be able to properly shout. Mike didn’t move an inch, still kneeling on the tiles. Wills head was buzzing and he felt a surge of energy as he sat up straight, lifting his back away from the porcelain tub. Everything was too much, he just wanted to be alone and he raised his fists, directing them through watery eyes at Mikes chest, beating once, twice, three times into his tee shirt. On the fourth Mikes fingers caught his wrists and brought him to stillness with a jolt. Will couldn’t keep hitting him so he collapsed into Mikes chest, the real tremors following suit. Richtor scale Will quaked against Mike’s lithe body, breath coming hard and gasping into his fire-aching lungs. 

_Why?_

That was all Will could say. 

_Because I -_

Mike couldn’t seem to get past those two words, spluttering them on repeat.

Time bent itself around the pair, roping itself around Wills crookedly curved back and becoming something immeasurable. They could have sat for seconds or days and he couldn’t tell. He tried to count to ten over and over again, triumphing when he could get to double digits before another sob wracked his stringy limbs. 

When he broke away, the side of his face felt raw where he had rubbed it into the fabric of Mikes shirt. Red and yellow striped with a little brown collar.

“I want to go home” he whispered, rubbing his stinging eyes so he didn’t have to look at Mike. 

“Do you want me to call your mom?”

Will couldn’t shake his head fast enough.

He wanted to go _ home._

The pops of tires on frozen gravel echoed up towards the dim street lamps as the two boys bikes through the midnight silent streets of Hawkins. Will had intended to go alone but he should have known better.

Maple Street was lost to the fog and the boys didn’t slow down until 149 glinted in the dim light of their two bike headlights. 

The house was condemned but the door wasn’t bolted. 

Only a few months after it was sold it sat abandoned and hazardous. Had it always smelled so much like rot? He could see Mikes hot breath freezing in the air. 

He wanted to hide. He had never been this close to hell again. 

The living room. _Saturday evenings, falling asleep on the couch and waking up to Lonnie’s thick veined hands and whisky breath reigning down. Arms up, Byers. Shield your face. Don't let him break your nose. If you bleed all over the couch someone will notice. _

The kitchen. _Catching his mom crying over bills all spread out like a ribbon of cards, many of them sporting his own name._

The bathroom. _He could still feel that thing slipping up his throat, his mouth full of a gritty slime he couldn’t wash out. _Will retched, ghost white as he gripped the sink. 

Why had he come?

“Maybe we should get out of here,”

Will shook his head so instead Mike pried his hand from the porcelain, lacing their fingers together.

His bedroom. He left there quickly pulling Mike behind him. 

Joyce’s room. 

_Will curled up, catatonic-_

“You know I don’t think the rooms that bad without that hippy wall hanging your mom had, the crocheted one?”

Will cracked a thin lipped smile at the peeling paint, squeezing Mikes hand gently

“Don't worry, it’s up in our new place.”

Will turned, his fingers tracing the hollow crack of the closet door. He used to try to open it as a kid, sure he would find treasure. He had been disappointed when all that lay inside was cleaning equipment and stashed playboy magazines. 

“My mom uses to put on the vacuum so we couldn’t hear her fights with my dad”

“I wish my parents did that,” Mike said with a chuckle that didn’t fold into those little dimples around his nose. 

The house has always been small but in the narrow hallway it became unbearably so and the boys make their way out to the porch, skipping past Jonathan’s bedroom. Will probably spent the least amount of time in that room anyway.

Then they walked back through the living room and Will tried to remember something better. It was hard when the mundanity of the house faded away and all that was left were the sharpest memories. 

Mikes fingers in his helped ground him in the warmer moments. _Jonathan spilling popcorn over the carpet on movie nights, crouching with Dustin playing cards at the coffee table, dancing around at 5 years old to The Beach Boys and Joyce swinging him up into her soft bony arms. _

They sat on the stoop and watched the night pass, snow falling until it covered the dingy white sludge with a layer of fresh pure white. 

“It’s Christmas, isn’t it?”

“Merry Christmas ,Will”

Wills fingers were freezing but his palm was sweaty pressed against Mikes, not thinking far enough to bring anything other than their coats. 

“Are you cold?”

Mike shook his head, teeth chattering.

“Will, I really am sorry.”

“I know.” The pain in Mikes voice pushed Will into a job someone else usually occupied, a little comic relief. “I would try to get you back but you don’t have any secrets.”

Mike didn’t say anything for a moment, pulling his hand out of Wills, looking to the flickering streetlamp far on the left. 

“Mike, I’m joking,” Will confirmed, trying to catch his eye again.

“El and I broke up,” all in one breath.

“Oh.” A short pause before “When?”

“November.”

“Oh. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I- um, we broke up because I said I think I might like boys.”

Will stilled, afraid to exhale as if his dragon-breath in the dark could shatter what he had just been told. 

“But I think I might like girls too. Are there people like that?”

“I don’t know,” was all Will could say. 

When Mikes eyes found Wills again they were swimming and he knew he had to revise. 

“I’m sure there are, Mike. Twice the love, right. The world could use that.”

“Have you ever kissed someone before?” 

Will shook his head. 

“Then how do you know? That you like boys.”

Will pulled a face “Because. I just know. I mean, crushes, you know, I want to kiss them, or whatever.” Will had gone ghost white in the cold but now he was just the littlest bit pink. 

“Charlie?”

“No.”

“Who?”

It was Wills turn to go silent.

“You don’t have to answer that, sorry,” Mike whispered. Was his voice shaking from the cold? 

“Can I kiss you, Will?”

All Will could do was nod but the head bob was rewarded with Mikes freezing hand on his cheek. His lips were chapped and warm, perhaps the only warm part of the other boy.

Before Will could remember to close his eyes the kiss was over but the aftershocks could be felt in his thrumming heart and tingling cheeks. 

Mike turned his head again but it was just to hide that dopey smile that had spread across his cheeks. 

Will moved to cover the three inch gap between them, finding Mikes icy fingers with his own. 

Wills “maybe we should go back” didn’t come until four kisses later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ya boys computer kaputed so this chapter was written on lunch breaks and as I fell asleep. Its a bit messy but at least it’s long and the biggest surprise is that there’s like...a little bit of plot!!
> 
> hope you enjoyed my gross flowery writing, feedback is always appreciated!


	4. Tomorrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If it's this reality, if this is all just let it be
> 
> I'm tired of thinking about this morning  
May as well just dream of what tomorrow brings

Will lay on his back in his dorm room dragging his eyes along the cork tile ceiling and thinking of Mike far away at Princeton. His roommate hadn’t come home for the night so he played Pat Benatar’s We Belong as loud as he wanted and let himself cry dry sore sobs. 

Jonathan had always made a disapproving face when his mom played Pat Benatar. 

Being heartbroken made him boring. 

Will fiddled endlessly with Mike’s ring on his pointer finger, thin silver folded around a small purple amethyst to look like an eye. Under the metal his finger was rubbed so raw that it hurt even when he wasn’t touching it, stinging clear liquid weeping from it. He couldn’t bring himself to move it to another finger. It wouldn’t fit right and he was terrified of losing it. When he had first seen blood breach his pale skin he heard his mom’s voice ringing in his ear that he needed to take the ring off and disinfect it but when the metal clattered against the grimy porcelain sink and he had watched the ring almost flash down the drain he knew that he was never going to take it off again. 

It was all he had left of Mike now.

He should have seen it coming, he knew that now. He was stupid to think that he was going to keep Mike forever.

He had just gotten so comfortable. Mike became the shining star of Hawkins High but he would still rush home to talk to Will on the phone before he went out to parties. Mike had made him feel like he was enough, that no matter how high mike soared he still wanted Will. Mike had still wanted him even when he placed fourth in the Indiana State Cross country meet his Junior year. Mike had still wanted him even when he became Student Body Vice President. Mike had still wanted him when he drove 6 hours to Will’s art show just to get his lights knocked out against the red brick walls of the community center back alley. 

“I really prefer fairy over faggot,” Mike declared matter-of-factly after their backs had dissipated into the street. A dribble of blood fell onto the gray gravel from where his tooth knocked through soft flesh.

“You’re such a fantasy nerd, Paladin.”

“Do you get that often?”

_Every fucking day._

“Sometimes.”

“Jesus.”

There was no confusion about who Mike was and who Will was, but Mike had always still wanted him. Clogging up the Wheeler’s line and pressed against Mike’s bedroom wall every few weeks, he wanted him. 

Until he didn’t. 

Until two weeks before Mike got on a plane to the East Coast he had told Will he didn’t think this was working out. 

Until he asked Will if he could kiss him one last time and Will said no.

Until he broke his fucking heart.

Will went to college days later and slipped into the shadows, ignoring calls from his old friends and certainly not making any new ones. It was easier that way.

Mike didn’t know where to contact him. That was what he told himself, that was why he never called him again. 

Except everyone else found out, all sent him stories from their life and asked him about his own. Will tried. Three to one was the average return ratio for letters his first year, a shoebox beneath his bed stuffed with ripped open envelopes.

His friends never stopped calling.

He got better. He got over Mike, something he had been failing to do since he was nine, but it still hurt.

He had to pry out the part of him that he built around Mike, cutting out a good chunk more just to make sure that it was really gone. 

He had to figure out a new way to be in the world and it hurt but he made it through. 

When he woke up out of nightmares, he no longer wanted Mike. He made himself a giant mug of hot chocolate in his pink Boys Will Be Toys mug his friend Syd got him and picked up a pen. 

He had never seen his mom smile wider than when he walked across that stage to get his diploma.

Jonathan hit him on the back just a little too hard, eyes shining with enthusiasm. Will, I’m so proud of you. 

_Will was proud of himself._

The next step was getting the fuck out of dodge but he had one pit stop along the way.

The grocery store freezer section sent goose-bumps up his arms, the cold hitting him like a wall as he searched the wide doors, crumpled handwritten list jammed into his palm.

Hawkins, Indiana was the last place he expected to be after finishing college and he had to keep reminding himself that this was all only temporary. 

El had a ritual. She came back year after year on the anniversary of Jim Hopper’s death and paid her respects, camping under the stars near Hop’s cabin. His mom usually made the pilgrimage with her but she hadn’t been able to get off work. El only had to give Will that look once before he agreed to go along even though Hawkins was the last place in the world he wanted to linger. Everyone had moved away, there was nothing good here anymore. Everything else had gone sour.

“Will?"

Faces really never change, do they? Mike wore glasses now, round and dark tortoiseshell. Twenty-two did well to him, though he looked haggard and his shirt had a pale yellow stain covering the white fabric.

“Oh. Hi. What are you doing here.”

Bland, but it was all Will could croak out. 

“My dad.”

“Oh. Jonathan said, sorry.”

“Thanks. El mentioned you’d be back in town, I wondered if I’d see you.”

“You still talk to El?”

Mike pulled a face.

“Uhm, yeah”

“She just doesn’t talk about you,” Will said quickly

“Okay, ouch.”

_Shit_

Will found his goal just in the knick of time, pulling the cold yellow box to his chest.

“Sorry. Bye, Mike.” His attempt to push past him towards the counter was thwarted by a warm steady hand on his shoulder. Mike smelled like cologne, woody floral and completely alien.

“Hey, Will, it’s okay,” God, he forgot how his voice could soothe him. “Can I see you again while you’re here? I’d do anything to get out of that hospital room.”

“Maybe.” What he wanted to say got stuck in the back of his throat “Mike, I’ve got to go.”

Out of Mike’s grasp he threw his money at the cashier, not looking back until his key was in the ignition.

Will could hardly breathe as he drove to meet El, trying to drown out his own mind with Prince but When You Were Mine came on after Lets Go Crazy and all he could do was laugh and keep on one side of the yellow line. 

Will thought he had been completely over Mike Wheeler, but not thinking about him every day and being okay when he saw him face to face were apparently very different things.

El made him feel better. She always did, her laugh generous and rich as it seemed to fill up the whole woods.

Then she hinted that they might have a few people joining them and Will’s heart sank again.

They made a small fire on a patch of level dirt, not even setting up their tent. The view through the tops of the trees was too nice to spoil with canvas.

When Mike showed up, El gave Will a giddily apologetic look and he felt the same nausea he felt in the grocery store.

“Hop wasn’t his dad.” Wil’s sharp whisper cut into El’s ear as they went to gather more wood.

“He wasn’t yours either.” El’s eyes flashed fiery

That shut Will up and they sat down across from each other, as far as they could be but still too close. Flames licking shadows on Mike's cheeks, rosy and hollowing. His hair was shorter, curlier than he had ever seen it. He had his ears pierced, a silver stud glinted as the fire shot sparks. 

Two hands on his shoulders, El. “You love me right?

Max Mayfield emerged from the woods swinging a bottle of whiskey at her side. She pushed damp red curls back over her offwhite bandana and sat down with a huff and a smile “Gee, Ellie. Did you really have to camp on top of a fucking hill?”

When there were four, at least it was easy to hide behind a placid smile and a few well-placed nods. 

“What’s up with those two?” Mike asked out of the corner of his mouth, the first words he had spoken to him all night. They had been talking around each other, in the same conversations but never responding directly to what the other. Will wondered if it was conscious on Mike’s part and doubted it very much. Mike was forward where the other was withholding.

“Hooking up?” Will suggested offhandedly, shrugging and taking another drink directly from the half-empty bottle. 

The pair had been making eyes all night and now they claimed they were going to find a place to take a leak but they hadn’t returned for a good 10 minutes, their giggling echoing indiscernible and free back to the clearing.

“Really, those two?”

Will shrugged again.

“Shit,” Mike mumbled, absently slapping a mosquito off of his forearm. 

The alcohol burned his throat, warming him up. Always skinny and cold he finally felt the heat reaching his limbs. He felt good. 

What could Mike Wheeler do to him, he had already destroyed him once and he had built himself again. Mike had nothing left in him to take, he couldn’t do him any harm.

Maybe that was a bit optimistic, but he felt it so it became true. 

“Maybe nine is the magic number,” Will commented, digging out a bit of dirt from under his nail.

“Nine?”

“Nine years. Of knowing someone. We got together after nine years, right? They’ve known each other for nine years.”

“Maybe, yeah.”

“Wasn’t so magical for us though, was it,” Will said with a dry chuckle, chucking a rock into the fire.

“Will,” Mike pleaded, Will didn’t know what for. 

“What?”

“Can we talk about something else?”

Will wanted to ask why it bothered him since he was the one who ended it. Maybe Will was a little wicked when he got drunk. Maybe he had just been waiting to say all this shit for four years, but he kept his lips tight. He just said okay and let Mike begin to speak. 

At first they talked about nothing. Joyce’s job. Hawkins’ new mini-golf course. Will liked Rain Man and Mike liked Die Hard. They both liked Beetlejuice.

Then he talked about his dad. 

"Fucking bastard won't quit on anything so it makes sense he won’t quit on life. I mean, even when shit sucks he won't quit like how he should have quit on my mom before I was even born. 

"You know I told him I was going to law school in the fall and he said: “thank god.” I mean what the fuck does that even mean?"

Mike had the bottle now.

"You know I told him I was gay and he told me I should fucking join the marines or he wouldn’t pay for me to go to school. When I got into Princeton he dropped all that. Apparently that was honorable enough to make up for having a fairy son."

Will never knew that. Mike shuffled his feet and handed back the bottle. 

“Whatever, I met more gay guys up there than he thinks exist in the whole world. It doesn’t matter now anyway. Whatever.”

He asked Will what he was doing now. Will didn’t have the heart to tell him he worked part-time at a gas station with no plans of what to do next so he just said that he had graduated.

“Congrats, man.”

“Thanks.”

“I know that meant a lot to your family and stuff.”

“I want to write books, illustrate them too,” that all came as a surprise, even to Will.

“You’d be good at that.”

Will just nodded.

“I really missed you, you know,” Mike’s voice was small.

Will let out a soft hum, busying himself with screwing back on the red metal cap.

“I’m serious, Will. I know things now that I didn’t know then and I’m sorry. I really- I miss you. Seeing you here makes me realize that I-”

A branch snapped behind Will and he jumped, turning around to see the girls pushing their way through the trees.

“We saw a deer and we followed it,” El said, collapsing in a giggling heap next to Max. Will hadn’t noticed how much closer he and Mike had gotten, noon and three o’clock.

Mike gave him a rueful smile and Will returned it.

“I’ll call you,” Will said against his earlobe as they hugged goodbye.

When Ted Wheeler died two months later Mike's voice croaked on Will's answering machine. 

The drive back to Hawkins was long even though he did 15 over the whole way._ I'm coming._

Mike’s suit hung baggy around his shoulders and Will let him cry into the chest of his starched black button-down. 

It was strange to be back in Mike’s room after all these years. 

He was surprised how little had changed, both in the posters on the wall and the way that Mike held his bottom lip just a little too open when he kissed. 

“Thank you,” Mike repeated against his lips and Will gripped tight to his lapels until the kisses grew wet and salty, then he lay Mike back against his pillows and let him shake until he fell asleep. He tried not to wake him as he untangled himself, drool pooling on the white pillowcase.

Will would be there in the morning and to his own surprise the morning after that, too. They had plenty of time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pah! that's curtains on this one!
> 
> if you've read this far thank you so much, I really really appreciate it!
> 
> this originally had completely different ending but I broke up with my boyfriend and got really sad so it turned out with a little more messy and circular last chapter but I'm still okay with it and I hope you are too!
> 
> i absolutely love writing this nonsense and I hope you got even a fraction of the pleasure reading it that I got writing it!
> 
> feedback is always appreciated, I love hearing what y'all have to say!
> 
> thanks a million! love, ollie
> 
> p.s. I'm looking for a beta for some new cliche byler high school shit I'm having fun with so if you like my writing and want more input on it or hate my writing and want to tear it to shreds lmk! either works!

**Author's Note:**

> no, no, no, I didn't make Will Byers super sad inside and then write it out YOU made Will Byers super sad inside and then wrote it out... 
> 
> thanks so much for reading, man! any feedback appreciated!


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